“Our fans love SKITTLES® not just
for its delicious fruity flavors, but for the irreverence and sense
of humor for which the brand is known.”
That quote comes from Skittles’ Senior
Brand Manager Rebecca Duke, and while I won’t place all the blame on
her for every awful Skittles commercial I’ve seen in the last ten
years, her statement does make it seem like she was complicit.
Examples of their irreverence and sense of humor include but are not
limited to:
Pretending their candy is a communicable disease
Showing an adult man with an umbilical cord coming out of his stomach who can taste the flavors of the Skittles his mother is eating (she is seated on the couch next to him and the other end of the cord disappears between her legs)
The absolutely haunted man who is cursed to have everything he touches turn to Skittles (this one is actually great)
Using torture methods to get a rainbow to give up its Skittles
Hiring Steven Tyler, the worst crime of all
Skittles doesn’t seem too into making specific flavor-themed commercials, so it’s unlikely you’ll be seeing a bunch of decomposing corpses humping until they all cum in an explosion of gore-themed candies. Irreverent!
The premise: All the Skittles look the same, most are “normal” flavored, but some taste like rotten zombie. It’s similar to the Harry Potter beans, if one must insist on such a comparison, as did every single person to whom I explained Zombie Skittles.
The difference, of course, is that you’re playing Russian roulette instead of knowing which candy will be gross. Here we come upon the fundamental problem with Zombie Skittles: you’ve already got one foot in the grave. There’s no way to enjoy these candies, because you’re constantly dreading getting a rotten one.
As for the zombie taste, I’m happy to report that it isn’t that bad. Jones Bacon Soda tasted way more zombie-like than this. There’s no taste of decomposing flesh; instead, it’s an odd savory flavor that will catch your attention immediately, but probably won’t cause you to spit it out.
It’s not really meat-like in flavor, just a generic sort of anti-candy “blech”. I was able to power through it and the taste faded quickly afterwards with no lingering. I could say worse of other foods I’ve tried.
Here’s the thing about Zombie Skittles: they’re not for me, and they’re not for you, either. They’re for friends, enemies, co-workers, and Trick or Treaters. Nobody (except psychopaths) is gonna sit down and eat beyond one zombie-flavored Skittle. (I got one on my fourth try.)
Nobody’s here for the non-zombie flavors, either They’re just what you’d expect, anyways, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they’re all retreads with new names, but I’m too lazy to look it up.
These aren’t meant to be fun for one; they’re meant to be used as drinking game devices and playground dares; used to torture and also delight the children that ring your door on October 31st. They’re fun! Halloween is fun!
Speaking of fun, I tried to make a cool zombie claw out of Skittles, but it didn’t work so I just freehanded a skull. I like him and his little crooked smile. My gentle skelly boy.
Zombie Skittles
Score: 4 out of 5 candy-cumming zombies
Price: $2.28
Size: 10.72 oz. bag
Purchased at: walmart.com
Nutritional Quirk: I’d love to know how the zombie flavor was decided upon. It’s such an uncommon, hard-to-place taste, and the process getting there seems fascinating.
Welcome to my new site, Muncha Libre.
Here, we discuss wrestling-related food and wrestling-related food
ONLY.
…I’m being informed by my Google
search that the name Muncha Libre appears to be taken by a line of
luchador-themed cookie cutters, which are adorable. I guess it’s back
to ol’ Junk Food Betty.
The inspiration for this sudden change
in focus comes from these absolutely darling Nerds ¡Lucha Grande!,
which have apparently been around since 2017. And, it seems, the
Internet hasn’t quite caught up to them either. Not a lot of reviews
out there.
And what a shame, because look at these
beautiful boxes. I’ve never seen such a story unfold on a box of
candy before. Stories, I
should say. Two boxes, four new flavors, and four unique luchador
Nerds. I love them all.
Lime vs.
Pineapple
First we have Lima
Intensa vs. Piña Furiosa. I love that the nature of the Nerds
mascots makes them look like they all grabbed some socks from Nana’s
winter drawer to use as masks, but at the same time, I want to
appreciate the fact that whoever designed this box actually took the
time to not only give the Nerds necks, but also imagined what a lucha
mask would look like around them. Fantastic.
Lima’s sticking to a more generic all-green look, but I admire Piña for both the lightning bolt design and the yellow/green combo, really repping the colors of the pineapple. Why didn’t they call her Piña Eléctrica?
Piña may win the round for best lucha
look, but I’ve gotta give it to Lima for the flavor. Purely a
personal preference. Piña Furiosa is fine as a representative of
pineapple candy. I just don’t like that flavor. Imagine the pineapple
Lifesaver in the original fruit roll; these Nerds taste exactly like
that. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen a roll of fruity Lifesavers
in forever. Just imagine a
straightforward pineapple candy.
Lime is the same
way – think of your favorite lime-flavored candy and you’re 99%
there. If you’re me, remember the good times when green Skittles were
lime- and not green apple-flavored. Ah, yes, there we go.
Guava vs. Mango
Chile
Our second match-up is between Guayaba Solitaria and El Mango Fuego.
Obviously, this match is the main attraction. We’ve got two luchas
with fire-themed masks, but they’ve taken it in different directions.
EMF gets points for sticking with flame-related colors, but look at
the stitch work on Guayaba! So detailed! The combination of neon pink
with green reminds me of an unreadable geocities website, but I can’t
deny that it really makes the mask details pop. Those jagged
eyebrows! You might not be solitaria forever, Guayaba. You’ve pinned
my heart.
Guava is a slightly more exotic flavor than lime or pineapple, but
again, the Nerds taste is pretty straightforward. I could go into
some flowery language about it, but it tastes like guava candy.
Bright and tropical.
Call me crazy, but
I’m guessing that any interest in this candy lies mostly in Mango
Chile. (And the luchadors, of course.) The mango flavor is
front-and-center, again being exactly as advertised. The chile part
was pretty subtle for spicy candy – you’re not enduring an Atomic
Fireball Challenge.
There’s also no
distinct flavor to the spice;
it’s not cinnamon or even what I’d call “chile”, just a bit of a
heat zing as an aftertaste. Hot candy isn’t really for me, but I
think it’s a fun addition that doesn’t overwhelm the mango flavor.
Willy Wonka’s ¡Lucha Grande! Nerds are part of a larger line of Wonka candy inspired by “Spanish candy store” flavors. There’s Guava and Pineapple Laffy Taffy, Pineapple, Mango Lime, and Cucumber Watermelon Pixy Stix, and those last two also show up as Fun Dip flavors with Lime- and Tamarind-flavored dipping sticks. Neat!
Except apparently this strategy didn’t
go so great, since the press release points towards a now defunct
website where you could see the ¡Lucha Grande! Nerds in comic strips
that I now desperately want to find and make fun of.
That’s right, between the time I
acquired these Nerds and the time I reviewed them, the entire ad
campaign for this line of candies went extinct. Listen, the candy was
a little expired when I reviewed it, but not that
expired. Have a little faith, Wonka! Give these flavors another
chance!
As for our little leftist corner (real name tbd, possibly never), you don’t have to go far on this one. Willy Wonka is owned by Nestle, a company that steals water. I won’t even link you to a specific article; just look for yourself.
Nerds ¡Lucha Grande! Lime vs Pineapple and Guava vs Mango Chile
Score: 4 out of 5 adorable little luchador masks for everyone!
Price: $0.79-1.19 MSRP
Size: 1.65 oz. box
Purchased at: Ask my mom
Nutritional Quirk: lol look at this picture and tell me this is how many Nerds you eat in a sitting
Summertime is in full swing, and we all
know what that means: abnormal heat waves and confronting the
mounting horrors of climate change!
But also, ice cream. Ice cream is fun!
Growing up, I didn’t like chocolate
much, which narrowed my ice cream choices. This was actually a
problem when I was growing up in the late 1800s: your choices were
basically vanilla, chocolate, or syphilis. Anyone who says the past
was better is lying.
Freaks like me chose an alternate path:
the fruity one. And back in the days when indoor plumbing was scarce,
that meant three flavors: lime, orange, or raspberry, aka The
Sherbets Rainbow.
In these capitalist times, there’s a
true rainbow of sherbets. No
longer are you groaning as you face down the stripe of orange, having
already consumed the far superior lime and raspberry portions. Have
it your way with all
the sherbet flavors available. They probably even contain actual
fruit now.
“A
raspberry sorbet with an extra tart lemonade swirl and sour sugar
bits,” the carton of Limited Batch Pucker Upper proclaims. “…a
completely new ingredient, custom-designed for this Ben & Jerry’s
flavor,” the press release continues, trying to convince you that
the company reinvented Nerds.
The
rest of the press release is pretty milquetoast, but here’s one
paragraph I enjoyed:
“After
13 years with the company, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a flavor
quite like this,” said Laura Essaid, Ben & Jerry’s Associate
Brand Manager who helped with the new flavor creation process. “It’s
a perfect flavor for summer with a balance of sweet and sour, while
light, fruity, and refreshing… plus, there’s no grill required.”
That’s
a rough joke at the end there, Laura, but I understand. You’re just
the Associate Brand Manager. It’s not like you need to put words
together good for that position.
I
gotta say though, I feel like I have
seen a flavor quite like this before..
image stolen from kmart.com
Yes, I
know Laura is referring to the not-Nerds, which certainly are a new
ingredient to Ben & Jerry’s. I just love the feverish hype press
releases attempt to stir with these proclamations.
L-lemon? You there?
The main body of
raspberry sorbet is delicious but ordinary. Tart, sweet, refreshing.
The lemon swirl was indeed “extra tart” as advertised, but
suffered some bitterness as a side effect. I’ve seen this happen to
lemon sorbets before – the more tart you go on a lemon flavor, the
more you’re upping the chance for that bitter aftertaste.
This
is wisely countered by the addition of the sour sugar bits. They work
nicely to counteract that small bitterness by giving tiny, crunchy
bursts of sugar. If you snag a bit of lemon swirl with your
raspberry, you’re guaranteed to get at least a few of them –
there’s no shortage. They don’t taste sour at all, due to already
being ensconced in lemon, but they add a welcome sweetness and a bit
of crunch to an otherwise uniformly-textured pint.
According
to the press release, Ben & Jerry’s used a dairy coating around
them to prevent melting. It definitely works when you’re eating out
of the carton, but it works less well when you’re spitting them out
of your mouth to take a picture. Ghetto? Sure, but definitely faster
and more delicious than waiting for a scoop to melt so I can filter
out the milk-Nerds.
While the use of a
dairy coating to keep the sugar bits from melting is ingenious, it
does take Ben & Jerry’s Pucker Upper off the table as a vegan
dessert treat. A bummer, but it doesn’t stop Pucker Upper from being
a hit in my mind.
Berry and lemon
sorbets go great together. It’s a slam-dunk summer treat, no doubt.
But the addition of the sugar bits does turn this into
something special. Maybe it’s not the most refined flavor palette,
but summer is the time to indulge your inner child, especially as we
all cook to death. That’s right, I brought us back around!
Ben & Jerry’s seems like a slam-dunk of a company from a leftist perspective. They even pay their employees a living wage!
That’s absolutely good to hear, until you see that employees on glassdoor.com are reporting wages of below $10/hour at Scoop Shops. And there are news stories of migrant workers at their dairy farms making unlivable wages, as recently as 2017. This has since improved, but the migrants had to fight for it.
I’m not saying Ben & Jerry’s is the worst, but when you bring politics into your ice cream game, as they have, you better make sure your house is in order!
Limited Batch Ben & Jerry’s Pucker Upper
Score: 4.5 out of 5 BRING BACK ADORABLE CARTOON FRUITS!
Price: $3.84
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Walmart
Nutritional Quirk: Raspberry puree is the second ingredient. Take that, Rainbow Sherbet!
Lay’s is the savory equivalent of Oreos. Their desire to pump out new flavors of potato chips seems like a compulsion. The difference between the two is that, while Oreo just goes straight off the rails, Lay’s always seems like they need a theme or a reason to do this. See: the extensive Taste of America rollout last year, the Passport to Flavor campaign, and of course, the Do Us a Flavor contests, where they basically said, “You do the work, we’ll sit back and judge.”
This time around, the excuse they’ve
decided to make is…music! They’ve teamed up with (read: paid) Bebe
Rexha to make an all-new song that you can only find by buying a bag
of Turn Up the Flavor Lay’s, or probably just take a picture of the
code on the package.
Apparently this song mixes pop, hip hop
and rock, which is such an accomplishment that my hat just flew off
my head. Also, full disclosure: this is literally the first time I
have heard the name Bebe Rexha. I am very old.
Because press releases are completely
fucking bonkers, here’s an excerpt straight from Lay’s:
“Like flavor, music has the power
to elicit strong emotions such as joy, passion and nostalgia,”
said Katie Ceclan, senior director of marketing, Lay’s. “Those
emotions can be heightened even further when you pair the right
flavor and music together – and that’s exactly what we sought to do
with the ‘Turn Up the Flavor’ program. As a brand that loves to
delight our fans, we are excited to bring them two things they love –
the uniquely delicious flavors of Lay’s and the incredible sound of
Bebe Rexha. Our limited-time flavors paired with exclusive, new songs
from Bebe each create a customized sensorial experience for our fans
to taste, listen and enjoy.”
Man, Katie really took us on a journey,
there. I now believe Lay’s has power over all
my emotions, and I will eat them much more cautiously. The last thing
I want to do is start weeping uncontrollably at a job interview
because I had a bag of Sour Cream and Onion on the way there.
That’s probably not
a good idea in the first place. You don’t want stank onion breath at
an interview. What’s wrong with you?
The
descriptions of these flavors in the press release are bonkers,
so I will review them from least to most crazy. You’ll see what I
mean.
Wavy Electric
Lime and Sea Salt
“The
tangy and vibrant flavors of Lay’s Wavy Electric Lime and Sea Salt
are energetic and upbeat like the fun-filled melodies and lyrics of
Pop Music that you can’t help but keep on repeat.”
Okay. Cool. We’re one tequila shot away from a rollicking good time
with these flavors. Although how well do they vibe with a potato
chip?
The first chip is
a real lime punch to the tongue, which I have to say, is not exactly
appealing. Lime and potato aren’t a great duo if you ask me. It’s not
a truly authentic lime flavor, but it’s also not candy lime, which is
a plus.
As you cram more
chips into your mouth the lime flavor fades and becomes more of a
general tangy sensation that works well with the sea salt on the
chip. I didn’t notice it as distinctly “sea” salt, however.
But the tang/salt
combo works well. The only problem is that if you stop eating them,
even for a minute, the lime flavor comes back and reminds you that it
sucks. The obvious solution is to keep eating the chips until the
entire bag is gone. Voila!
Kettle
Cooked Classic Beer Cheese
“Lay’s
Kettle Cooked Classic Beer Cheese is a bold, exciting flavor that
matches the incredible feeling you get listening to Rock Music as the
lead singer’s vocals lead into the first riff of the power chords and
you anxiously await the band to take it to the next level.”
Okay maybe lay off the amp pedal a little here, Lay’s. You sound like
a legally-stoned dad at a Van Halen concert. Although, appropriately,
so does this flavor. I feel prepared to be vaguely satisfied but
ultimately bored.
At first I thought
these tasted pretty much like a normal cheese kettle chip, but then
there was a bitter undertone that I could see representing the hoppy
taste of beer. It was a surprise flavor that wasn’t exactly welcome,
even though it did keep with the spirit of the Classic Beer Cheese
taste.
If you already
don’t like beer, you’re not going to like these chips, and even if
you do like beer I’m not entirely sure “bitter” should be a
flavor profile in a potato chip. Although if you’re already drinking
a beer, these might pair well.
While I don’t see
beer chips taking off as the newest trend, an attempt was made, which
is more than I expected out of this flavor. You always leave me
conflicted, Lay’s.
Flamin’ Hot and
Dill Pickle Remix
“There’s
no arguing that if Hip Hop was a flavor, it would be Flamin’ Hot! The
harmony of distinct beats and spicy lyrics create the same alluring
experience as uniting two fiercely loved flavors – Lay’s Flamin’
Hot and Dill Pickle. Bringing two powerhouses together to create
perfect harmony, rapper and songwriter Saweetie drops a guest verse
in Bebe’s Hip Hop remix that takes the heat to the next level.”
Listen. While I enjoy the genre of music, I have no authority to deny
or confirm that Flamin’ Hot is, indeed, the hip hoppest of flavors.
And is combining Flamin’ Hot with Dill Pickle really an “alluring
experience”? Is Dill Pickle even fiercely loved as a Lay’s flavor?
All I can do is tell you my opinion.
Full
disclosure: I feel like I’ve vaguely heard the name Saweetie before,
but could tell you absolutely nothing about them. I’m just so
old.
My nostrils were
completely pickle-blasted upon opening the bag, which I did not
expect. Even more surprising was how well Flamin’ Hot and Dill Pickle
played together. The taste of what I can only call “hot” (Flamin’
Hot really is just a flavor unto itself) and the mostly
vinegar-driven sourness just work.
I
know it sounds gross. I thought it would be gross. Wait, am I the
only one who thought it would be gross? Come to think of it, hot
pickles exist and are seemingly popular. Bringing heat to a
vinegar/garlicky combo doesn’t sound so crazy when I give it a second
of thought.
You’ve
converted me, Lay’s. While Classic Beer Cheese comes out the surprise
winner in uniqueness, Flamin’ Hot and Dill Pickle Remix takes first
place in taste. Sorry Electric Lime and Sea Salt, you’re just kind of
hanging out in the background, which is ironically representative of
me at any concert.
And now for our new segment, Behind the Food: It didn’t take much looking into the Frito-Lay chip machine to find a little bit of dirt swept under the rug: Just last May, Frito-Lay settled a three-year wage, meal, and rest dispute with their California truck drivers to the tune of $6.5 million. Turns out Frito-Lay was supposed to be paying their drivers and they weren’t! I guess they got mad that truck drivers actually wanted to stop driving at some point during the day. Hell yeah to these workers for getting the wages they deserved in the first place!
Lay’s Turn Up the Flavor Chips
Score (Wavy Electric Lime and Sea Salt): 2.5 out of 5 fun-filled melodies
Score (Kettle Cooked Classic Beer Cheese): 2.5 out of 5 legally-stoned dads
Score (Flamin’ Hot and Dill Pickle Remix): 4 out of 5 hip hoppest beats
Price: $3.49
Size: 7 1/2-8 oz. bags
Purchased at: Safeway
Nutritional Quirk: Classic Beer Cheese does list “Beer Solids” as an ingredient, which includes both hops and barley. I don’t want to know how you get beer solids.
Junk food and fast food reviews from a leftist perspective. We eat it so you don't have to!
